What is best diet?

[neicee1986]

found a baby chick half way out of his shell, so we brought him inside and helped him hatch the rest of the way. he is in a little box under the heat lamp and seems to be getting stronger but how long will it take before he is cute and fuzzy? It looks like he may be underdeveloped don't know for sure. Any advice?

 

[iopele]

It takes several hours for them to dry out and fluff up. Newly hatched chicks can live for 72 hours without food or water, but the sooner they get a drink and some chick crumbles, the less stress they'll experience. Dip its beak in water and let it drink for about 4 hours before you give it some crumbles. Good luck!

 

[akyramoto]

my girls get laying pellet - I fed them the crumble for a couple weeks, the feed store was nice & gave me a small bag of the pellet for free to see if my girls would eat it, which they did - so i switched them to the pellet - less mess & waste.

my girls also get about 4 cups of scratch a day - sprinkled through out the run. they also get oyster shells. I'm going to also buy them some grit.


i found out that sometimes the feed store isn't that helpful when it comes to feeding the chickens. when my chicks got bigger I just asked them what i should feed them & they gave me scratch. then for about the next month or so they were eating JUST scratch! ( they loved it though) then i went back in one day & one of the workers said something about LAYING crumble & pellet. then i started getting that......okay long story short - dont depend on the employees @ the feed store to inform you about feeding your chickens! investigate yourself through awesome forums like this!